Posting from a throwaway - trivial details have been edited for confidentiality.

I quit my previous job under similar circumstances. Was in lower management and absolutely loved my job, especially the people I worked with. A few months ago, one of the upper managers (who created the department and had been there since day one) left. Upper management now consisted of a young and inexperienced manager, and a replacement from outside the company. Nice enough people, but they tried to fix something that wasn't broken. Several radical changes were implemented with little explanation, even to other the other managers. Quadrupling in-service hours, unnecessary changes to time off policies and worker (and manager!) equipment, etc. All of this was done with zero input from employees and lower management. Hostile emails accompanied each change. Employees who had a problem with the changes were not encouraged to contact management - they were encouraged instead to send a resignation letter.

I decided to get feedback from the employees - asking if they had seen the emails and what their thoughts were. Unsurprisingly, feedback was universally negative. Most had problems with the changes themselves, and I did too, but my bigger concern was upper management not wanting discussion, even with other managers. We would hear about new changes in management meetings and not be allowed to oppose or even question it. One change was eventually reverted, although it took two days of chaos and non-productivity to convince them.

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After some time, and after seeing rising tensions between upper management and, well, literally everyone else, I finally was able to meet with the two in private. What I found out was both enlightening and disheartening:

• The young manager had wanted to implement several of these changes for a while, but never would so long as our old department creator was still here. I had thoughts of this when things began to change, reasoning that our old manager acted as an inhibiting force. This was confirmed to me in the meeting.

• There was pressure from corporate to make changes or corporate would "come in and clean house." This was a huge surprise. Corporate had seen down revenue from the previous year and decided changes need to be made. Whether or not they knew about losing 6+ employees that year, with no new hires, I don't know. Whether or not they knew about two people (one being the department creator) on maternity leave for 3+ months, I don't know. What I did know was no one had any idea about corporate pressure and thought upper management was solely responsible for the sudden changes. I told them this; they didn't even flinch.

• They didn't give a shit about the staff. I told them about rising tensions and distrust between the staff and upper management, saying that many people were considering leaving if things continued with such hostility. They told me if people wanted to quit that they wouldn't have wanted them here anyways. What a thing to say to make your employees feel valued and appreciated, right? It was a high-turnover department, I understood that, but for them to tell me that really showed what they thought of the people who made shit work. (I wonder if something like this will happen with crappydesign?)

So I quit, two days later. I told a few of the other managers about what I learned in the meeting, and asked them to keep an eye out for any future shit upper management tried. I had an informal exit interview with the department head, where I told her the same thing. She was surprised that no one had been told about corporate pressure, saying she would "have some things to bring up" during her next meeting. So there's hope. Maybe.

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Obviously a hell of a read, but there are parallels that can be drawn from my experience and what's happening right now. I'm glad to see this mod saying "enough" and creating a tangible consequence for Pao and Friends. Ideally they'd fix their attitudes and the way they do things, but I don't think they will, in which case I hope this place burns. They don't deserve to have Reddit if they're going to treat it so.

tl;dr: Was lower management, quit because upper management were making sudden and radical changes and being dicks about it. Told me to my face they didn't give a shit about the staff.